The Fall 2009 D&D Campaign

Life-or-Death Combat with the Armies of Hell!

After rescuing the heretofore unknown member of the Taylor family, the party returns to the family tower, only to learn shortly that it is under attack by an army of devils. The party immediately (after one minute of casting spells) volunteers to help, and are installed as the last line of defense at the door of the tower. As the battle rages around them, they find themselves almost immediately assaults by Phalanx Devil, who are fully immune to Korvash’s Desert Rage but incredibly susceptible to Ryu-kun’s Shocktopus, and Armor Devils, who are not immune to Desert Rage. Both are quickly dispatched, though not without damage to Señor Risco. Before the party can catch their breath, Spike Devils teleport into their midst. Because they appear very close to Khorvash and their lethal barbs deal nontrivial damage to Ryu-kun, Gai-san and Gitarisuto-san team up to outmaneuver the devils and remove them from combat. Finally realizing the threat the party poses, the devils move their elite guard to confront the party: four Spear Devil and the leader, a Bell Devil. The party goes into full panic mode, using their most powerful techniques: Khorvash conjures a wall to try and funnel the enemies into a more survivable pattern, Gai scrambles to the far end of the battlefield to use the Guy Smiley on a blinded enemy, Ryu-kun slams everybody he can reach with tentacles, Josep uses Monster Point to occupy a devil, Gitarisuto-san takes the front line and confronts the devils’ leader face-to-face, and Kangohei-san screams and runs away. By the skin of their teeth, the exhausted party eventually wins the fight, and help drive back the last gasps of the enemy hordes.

Team of Heroes, Return to Land!

Ron Jeremy has a conversation with the party, stating that he is a hero fighting the Cappy Barons, and suggests that the party return to the planet of Shaped Like A Unicorn to continue their adventure. Along the way, Ryu-ossan decides that life is not worth living if you are not handsome (and Khorvash, now a neanderthal, agrees) and kills himself four times with the help of Señor Risco and a magical spell. * By the time the party re-enters the atmosphere, he is reintroduced as Ryu-kun the dark elf, making him quince-born, I suppose. Upon landing, the party does some traveling and meets up with Mr. Taylor Jr., who asks the party to find his kidnapped sister. They read Mr. Taylor’s journal, and the people who understand it find it very interesting, and then visit the island where nobody goes (Cuba), where they believe the sister is being held. With a timely assist by Josep’s new Monster Point, they dispatch the guardians and rescue the young lady, who it turns out is not the Red Angel.

- During this time, the party reminisces about their exploits thus far, but Khorvash saw no need to essentially describe a first-season clip show in his episode synopsis, so this episode is shorter than normal.

The Moon Is a Library! A Combat with Death

The party gets on David Bowie’s rocket and flies to the moon. Unfortunately, they quickly realize that giving control of their super-fast technological marvel to the bugbear sorcerer simply because he has the quickest fingers is a terrible idea, and Khorvash promptly crashes the vehicle into a solid wall. Upon disembarking, the party finds themselves in a library (on the moon!) and meet a cranky skeleton named Pedantic Pete. The library (on the moon!) is infested by zombies who can not be killed, and then the party has a gripping discussion about the nature of animation versus unlife that Khorvash doesn’t listen to because he falls asleep a little. After some merry exploration, investigating the different parts of the library, the party finds some vampires to fight. They quickly learn that vampires are weak against melee weapons, or they must be because Khorvash, Ryu-ossan, and Señor Risco were fully ineffective while Gai-san and Gitarisuto-san do not have this problem.

During the eyecatch, the party sings “Shambala”.

After the commercial, Pedantic Pete finds the beaten and battered party and leads them to a giant pit trap, in which the veil’s guardian resides. In a great surprise for a first-season encounter, the guardian is Death himself (on the moon), and he proves it by discorporating Khorvash before he can even participate in the fight. He then works his way around the party, slowly removing removing chucks of them from the Material Plane before gutting Khorvash like a fish (he gets better, but only by certain definitions) before a relentless onslaught of damage finally brings him down. Ron Jeremy falls from the sky as the Fourth Awesome. During this conversation, no big and important character-changing things happened, like Gai-san speaking for the first time in the campaign, because if something that worthwhile had actually happened, somebody would have told Khorvash after he woke up. So no, nothing important here!

Horror of the Clockworks! Assembling the Moon Rocket

The party discovers that they need to get to the moon to reach the Fourth Awesome, so they begin exploring David Bowie’s lab, looking for the pieces they need to create a rocket ship. Along the way, they happen across a gathering of steampunk insects, who are quickly dispatched by Señor Aire’s Dervish Tango, and Gai-san finds the lost tome “Magical Book of Magical Poisons: a Magical Reference.” A golden steampunk insect and its electrum minions are guarding the first rocket piece, and when they are killed, Ryu-Ossan find a belt buckle with the power of elemental fire. Many jokes about hot crotches are told.
After the eyecatch, multiple swarms of electrum insects attack the party, and the following fight is long and difficult, but the party survives. David Bowie contacts the party to inform them that he has found the rocket’s power sources, but they are surrounded by the insects, and the party knows it is in for a long an dangerous fight. However, this time the party prepares with buff spells and a plan, and they stomp the insects in twenty seconds flat. David Bowie then informs them that the leader of the insects has escaped, but the party does not care because they have all the pieces to assemble a rocket.

Bring Back the Power! Inside the Flying Lab

The party uses the airship to fly to the Windmill of the Lawn Seeder, a floating technological marvel that is the source of the Second Veil. Inside, the party finds that much of the lab is locked down, the the power is out, and that the only functioning source of information is the AI, Alia. She sends the party toward four towers to turn the power back on and unlock the lab where they can contact the Third Awesome. The power is offline because of leaking tubes of acid, and somehow turning off these leaks will give the lab power. Khorvash wasn’t really paying attention there.
The first tower is the home of the elusive Dark Man, who uses magical darkness to hide from the party and inflict damage from the shadows. He meets his match against Shine Man’s weapon, used by Gitarisuto-san and his ally, Rush (in Drummer Mode). The second tower holds Hound Man, who splits into multiple forms before the party can approach and keeps them at bay with a wide reach. Luckily, Desert Man’s weapon has a wider reach, and Khorvash uses it to inflict massive damage on Hound Man’s weak point. Slime Man lurks in the third tower, but Gai-san uses Ghost Man’s weapon to run literal circles around him. The last tower is home to Gravel Man, but after Ryu-Ossan drops him many stories by blowing up the ground, he uses Octo-Man’s weapon to bat Gravel Man into submission.
With the Robot Masters destroyed, the last obstacle is to enter the final castle and destroy its guardian, the Yellow Demon. Though it tries to escape by disassembling and sliding through the floor, the party brings its most powerful attacks (except for Khorvash, who used his most powerful debuff) to bear and destroys it with a combination of the Gai Pierce, the Shocktopus, and whatever Gitarisuto-san names his relatively mundane critical hit. After this, the Second Veil breaks, and the party meets the David Bowie.

Meeting the Second Awesome! Mystery of the Obelisk

With the wandering samurai gone, the party has room left for Gai, and the original party enters the lair of Serpentus. The fight is long and dangerous, and while Khorvash’s Three-Ton Burden swung the fight to the party’s side, the fight was truly won by the combined efforts of everybody but the druid. Once Serpentus is dispatched, a hole appears in the ceiling, and Bob Dylan descends from the sky. He congratulates the party on breaking the veil and, after some resting, teleports them back to Dick Grayson. From here, the party is introduced to Scary Spice, and the party rides her (him?) for long enough to reach an important teleporter.

From here, the party makes it to Ryu-Ossan’s ancestral home, which has been destroyed in the many, many years since he last saw it. In a nearby cave, the party finds a black obelisk. It reacts warmly to most of the party but violently to Ryu-Ossan, who remembers it as the item that teleported him away from home thousands of years ago. Then Khorvash falls asleep for a while, and when he wakes up the party is retrieving the hull of an ancient airship from underwater. Once it is unearthed, the party takes it to somebody who can change it into the airship they need to travel to the site of the second veil.

Battles in the Desert! The First Veil is the Zodiac Raiders!

The party is teleported to the desert of Scheherazade, where they come across a poor town under regular siege by the Zodiac Raiders, a party of twelve coyote men who steal supplies from the village every day at noon. With the help of a wandering samurai filling the void left by the disappearance of Gai, he party sets a trap for the Raiders, determined to stop their attacks and trace them back to their hideout. Khorvash sets a trap of slipsand, and when the Raiders arrive on their horses, Cancer and Scorpio fall into the pit. The rest of the party deals with Gemini and Libra while the two larger members crawl out of the pit and are dispatched later. Afterward, Ryu-Ossan tracked the Raiders back to their base of operations, a desert temple covered by a divine veil.

When the party enters the temple, they are set upon by three waves of Raiders. First, they are ambushed in a hallway by Aries and Sagittarius, who try to flee but are chased and dispatched by Gitarisuto. Next, the party finds Leo, Virgo, and Pisces guarding an armory and a key to the second half of the temple. After a hard and tiring fight, the party rests for the night before unlocking the door and fighting Capricorn, Taurus, and the leader Aquarius. This battle pushes the PCs to their limits, so they steel their resolve before opening the final door and fighting the temple’s guardian: the thirteenth sign, Serpentus.

Climb the Tower of Trials! The First Awesome Appears!

The party enters the ruins, whereupon they are greeted by a disembodied voice in forming them that great awesome lies at the top of the tower. Needing no further incentive, the party faces a series of trials designed to test their physical and mental resolve:

The Trial of the Invisible Portal: The party is led into a never-ending hallway that infinitely repeats itself. They search the walls thoroughly and eventually discover a door hidden in the wall. Then they walk through the door.
The Trial of the Catlike Agility: A few platforms falls from the sky, and a nimble party member is required to cross them and pull a lever on the other side of the room. Luckily, the party has exactly one nimble member, and Gai crosses the gaps without incident and summons the bridge for everybody else.
The Trial of the Ridiculous Physics: The party has to work their way across a long pit with few platforms, greased ledges, and a pit that deposits fallen objects back at the beginning or the room. Gai strings a rope across the ledge and the party makes it across the ledge, but it takes Kangohei a hilarious number of tries.
The Trial of the Slippery Floor: The party is forced to slide across a large room filled with randomly-placed walls in order to make it to the exit. Using teamwork, they manage to get most of the party across, and Gai retrieves the rest of the party with cheating.
The Trial of the Bad Literature: The party is attack by twin authors, Sue and Mary, who attack by shouting passages from terrible, terrible fanfiction (and also by using claws and a bite attack). Truly bad fanfiction never dies, so the party is forced into somewhat evil and very messy means to finally dispatch the authors.
The Trial of the Imperative Ascension: The party skips the remaining trials with an elevator.

At the top of the tower, the party meets Dick Grayson, who is one of the Nine Awesomes. He tells the party that they must go to another planet, but first talk to a god, but first turn off a cloaking device to turn off a second cloaking device to find the god. Khorvash wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but the point is that the party is going to get erotic.

Running the Gauntlet! Arrival in Scheherazade

After the destruction of the Taylors’ tower, the party decides to accompany the hobgoblins to the portal leading to their homeland. In order to do this, they must brave a gauntlet of attacks, testing their endurance and combat prowess:

Round 1 – The ice-breaking encounter was an ambush by three men who attacked form the cover of plants. They did not capitalize on this opportunity with damage, and once the party was able to pinpoint their positions, their special moves made short work of the enemies.
Round 2 – The second combat encounter is an even fight between the party and the Fullmetal Foursome, two duskblades and two fighters who are experts in melee weaponry. However, the party does not give them a chance to prove themselves, as Ryu-ossan traps them in the middle of the road and Khorvash eliminates them with ease from afar.
Round 3 – The most challenging encounter is the ambush by the Impalers who attack the party from the shadows, kill their donkey, and rush into melee. Their physical superiority gives them a distinct advantage over the party, as they grab each person and deposit them on the spikes covering their bodies. Furthermore, they are resistance to much of the party’s magical damage and immune to Gai’s entire arsenal. They make short work of Khorvash, but Ryu-ossan uses his Ysgard Emergency to rebuild his body as a stronger, tougher bugbear. Señor Risco and Kangohei enter melee combat, more through necessity than wise tactical decisions, and in a nail-biting encounter, provide the weight necessary to tip the scale in the party’s favor.
Round 4 – The final challenge is a huge dinosaur named Bony Bony Chomper. Despite Ryu-ossan’s magics, Khorvash is quickly eaten, but Gai and Gitarisuto surround Chomper and overwhelm it with physical power.

Once the gauntlet is defeated, the party and the hobgoblins enter the magical portal, appearing in the mostly-desert region of Scheherazade. Though the hobgoblins are mostly put out by this development, in short order the party meets an encampment of vampires who can survive in the harsh desert environment. Gai and Khorvash are also experts at desert navigation, and with the assistance of the hobgoblins and the vampires, the party makes their way to a series of ruins they decide to enter.